Book Review - Enemies of the Heart (Andy Stanley)

~ Posted on Thursday, October 13, 2011 at 5:55 PM ~

This is the first book I requested under the Blogging for Books program with WalterBrook Multnomah Publishing and below is my review for the "Enemies of the Heart" book by Andy Stanley:

Title: Enemies of the Heart: Breaking Free from the Four Emotions That Control You
Author: Andy Stanley

Publisher:  Multnomah Books; Reprint edition (June 21, 2011)
ISBN-13/-10: 978-1601421456 / 1601421451
Paperback: 224 pages
Dimension: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches

Description from the product page:
"Are you afraid to look inside? Break free from the destructive power of guilt, anger, greed, and jealousy.

Divorce. Job loss. Estrangement from family members. Broken friendships. The difficult circumstances you are dealing with today are likely being fed by one of four emotional forces that compels you to act in undesirable ways, sometimes even against your will.

Andy Stanley explores each of these destructive forces-guilt, anger, greed, and jealousy-and how they infiltrate your life and damage your relationships. He says that, left unchallenged they have the power to destroy your home, your career, and your friendships.

In Enemies of the Heart, Andy offers practical, biblical direction to help you fight back, to take charge of those feelings that mysteriously control you, and to restore your broken relationships. Includes a six-week discussion guide-a valuable resource for small groups!

* Previously released as "It Came from Within""

I was immediately attracted to this book when I read the following:

 Guilt = I owe you
Anger = You owe me
Greed = I owe me
Jealousy = God owes me

Wow.... that just strikes it! I mean, just pause for a moment and think through each of the negative habits above and reflect on it.

I also enjoyed reading the chapters related to forgiveness. The author asked us to confront what makes us angry and to forgive the person and restate the decision that he or she does not owe us anything anymore. He further reminded us that you don't forgive because the other person deserves it, you forgive because you've been forgiven by our Father above. As I read through this chapter, I was reminded of a few personal experiences (which honestly, I have really really forgiven the person and move on) I like the sentence from page 104 where it says "Blaming won't make us better. Holding out for an apology won't either. The cure is forgiveness."

I also enjoyed reading the habits listed to change the enemies of the heart which is to: confess, forgive, give and celebrate.

I would highly recommend you to get this book, heck, buy more as a gift to your loved ones and friends!

You can get this book from WalterBrook Multnomah website, Amazon and many more.

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with the softcopy of the book by WalterBrook Multnomah in order to facilitate my review. All opinions expressed in this post are my own. Please do your own research when purchasing products, as your opinions may differ from mine. And if you'd like to read my previous book reviews, you can do so by reading this post of mine called "My Book Reviews"